Some of my friends have blogs too

Yes, my real life friends. Friends I knew outside of my blogging life. They have now started blogging and entered my blogging world. Which is a bit nerve wracking as I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever written about them….! Anyway, they are lovely people with lovely blogs. Check them out…

Ex-colleague and fellow cake-lover, Abbi, at blogthehousedown.com:

“I’ve been counting the calories and even hired a personal trainer. Yesterday was my first session with her.
‘Ah this will be easy,’ I thought, “I’m not in that bad shape.”
Well, I was wrong. Today I woke up and muscles hurt that I didn’t even know existed!…
After hobbling around the bedroom for most of the morning I decided to do something productive that required minimal moving, and so I decided to try out a recipe I found for courgette muffins…
So off I hobbled to the kitchen to embark on my healthy bake…I grated courgette, I measured the skimmed milk, mixed everything together and the little things came out looking pretty good…”

Beware, though, the tasty looking courgette muffins. Pop over to her blog to find out what happens when she tastes these babies!

Next is a friend I’ve known for years through a legal charity we’ve both been involved with at different points. This blog is brand new and full of all the things I spend time thinking about too.

“More 20somethings need to talk about the fact that this can be a terrible decade, discuss why, and throw out some life rafts of useful hope so that we may all survive until our 30s come to the rescue.

The article above – while acknowledging some of the problems of being in your twenties – is a classic example of The Great 20s Myth. This is the myth that your 20s are the best years of your life. Never, we are told, will you be more beautiful, thinner, look better, have more of a wonderful time, have more sex, have more great sex, and meet more wonderful people.

Waldman’s piece is, of course, just one of many things floating around about being in your twenties at the moment. You needn’t read all of the article, just look at the photograph and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It is the doorway to the deception that your 20s are one long sun-drenched, hazy day full of sexy and formative ‘fun’. A group of beautiful, tanned, bambi-limbed friends jumping in the air fuelled, presumably, just by the sheer joy of being alive. They are having the time of their life – of course they are! They’re in their twenties!

No.”

Another blog I enjoy reading is that of two friends that I worked with once upon a time. After we no longer worked together, we remained friends and they recently jetted off for a life under the Colombian sun. Not before a trek across Spain though, stories from which are to be found on the blog. This extract is from a wonderful post about a visit to Anthony’s uncle:

“We walked on further, trudging through the mud. Up in the mountains of San Juan de Rioseca it rains a lot.

‘Look over there,’ he said. ‘That’s the Rio Magdalena.’ The sun caught it at a bend, sending a brilliant flare of light from Colombia’s mighty river to my iris.

We continued walking through the cloud forest, flanked by jungle, toward my uncle Julio’s farm. On the way we passed a tiny, tidy construction site and met Viktor. He was wearing a broad-brimmed hat, wellington boots and a shirt and jeans dirty from the jungle path. A machete hung from his waist. He greeted us with a broad smile. After explaining the plan of the house he walked with us futher into the jungle.

Eventually we arrived at a small house, built by my uncle Gildo and members of the local community 15 years ago. It was there that we met Julio, my unbelievably fit and healthy seventy-nine-year-old uncle, his wife Rosa and perhaps the happiest person I have ever met: my cousin Feniz, who is married to Viktor.”

Next up is an old uni friend, the one we used to call Mum because she took care of us. Her blog is typically her – fashion-conscious and ready to offer food! Check out this snippet from one of her recent posts (I shall need to sort my legs out soon…):

“Now onto some fashion. I am glad that Spring is on it’s way (so they say). With it’s arrival will come some pretty colours and fabrics and less of these harsh, masculine lines we always tend to lean towards in winter.

Ladies! Be proud, be feminine and embrace the fact that the sun is coming out. Only problem is, we will have to up our game with regards to defuzzing our legs…winter hair can be excused, spring hair can NOT! Haha

Enjoy wearing the pastels and bright colours, experiment with layering different fabrics and textures, find a feminine look that suits your personality, I do believe that this look is not just for the “girly girl”.”

Next up, a friend with whom I share a love of honey, funny how little things can get you chatting. He has flown to greener pastures now (East London) but writes fabulously and I can fully recommend his blog. Check it out:

“The first wave of the spring’s sun had come and gone, transforming the landscape into a bleak and seemingly barren prospect as it left. The pull of the river was strong and I was faced with a choice of another day stuck inside grey walls freezing or be under grey skies freezing. A stiff cup of freshly brewed coffee gave me the push I needed. Thirty minutes later I was standing, rather being blown about, outside the Royal Festival Hall. Rain was tickling my face, annoyingly. My mood was being coaxed into better spirits by the wind. The mood was doing it’s best to ignore it. I made my way along the Thames path towards the gate that leads to the steps to the beach by Waterloo Bridge.”

Lastly, a friend who has recently returned to his home country, Ghana. He’s Ghanaian. And he’s Lebanese. And he’s been living in the UK since forever. But… Wait a minute… He’s…. No…

His blog is partly about this identity crisis. Here’s a taster:

“My family decided to take a trip to spend quality time together. We picked a little eco resort close to the Ivory Coast boarder of Ghana next to a town called Axim; I joined them a day after they left by taking a 20 minute internal flight to Takoradi where I was picked up by my brothers.

Upon arrival, I made the short 5 meter walk from the plane to pick up my bag and exit the airport. I flashed my ID to the immigration officer and he waved me through. ”Wait. Stop!” Someone yelled from the back of the office. Here we go.

“Where are you from?”. It took a while for me to realise, amongst all the eyes staring at me, who was speaking to me. It was the head of immigration. “Ghana”, I responded irritatingly. My usual spiel was useless. Everything I said to him was thrown back at me. I am not black and he has never heard of a Ghanaian person with the surname “Mouganie”.”

Embracing London

A few days ago, if you remember, I said I was off to see a maze made out of books. So, on Tuesday, I set out on my mission. I also wanted to see an exhibition about the Olympics, a world arts and music exhibition, an underground pavilion and there was a walk around Hyde Park which looked good.

Off I went, London 2012 app at the ready, to have my day of fun. The info about the aMAZEme exhibition said it started at 8am. It was about 9.20am by the time I got to the Southbank Centre. For some reason, it has never occured to me to think which bit exactly was the Southbank Centre. I just thought it was the bit which was lit up different colours in the evening. But I was always seeing that from the other side of the river. So as I approached the buildings in that area, I thought something would become clear, a sign or something. I walked in.. and around… and up stairs… and down ramps… and took this photo of a massive baobob tree, whilst trying to work out which exact building was the right one.

It is made using material from all over the world as part of the Festival of the World exhibition

It was shortly after stalling for time taking these photos that I found an information board about the Southbank Centre. It turns out, it’s all of the buildings I was circling blindly. It’s not one building with a big sign on. Embarrassingly enough, I should know that. I’m really familiar with this area. My law school is a stone’s throw from here. O well. I worked out that I needed the Royal Festival Hall and made my way there.

It was now a little after 9.30am. So why were all the doors closed? You know when a building doesn’t look like it wants you to enter? That’s what this one looked like. But my faithful London 2012 app said it started at 8am, so there must be a door open somewhere. There must be. THE APP SAID IT! THE APP CAN’T BE WRONG! The app wouldn’t let me down… would it?

I saw a door to a cafe inside the building open because the chairs and tables were being brought outside. I made my way there and saw a security guard. When I asked him how to get inside he said, ‘The building doesn’t open until 10am.’

What?! Bewildered, I produced my trusty app and showed him. ‘But it says! It says here! On my London 2012 app! It says it will start at 8am….’

‘That must be wrong, we definitely don’t open til 10am. Sorry.’

O, London 2012 app. Our relationship, which has been one of much excitement and adoration, has suddenly hit rocky ground. I shall not speak to you for a short while.

So I had a dilemma. Stick around and wait for half an hour to see this, or skip to the next thing and then come back later? I had too much to cram into one day to be hanging around at the confusing Southbank Centre.

I left and crossed the Hungerford bridge over the Thames, heading toward Covent Garden. I love the shops in Covent Garden but I know what I’m like on a day out. I get that holiday mentality on. ‘O! You’re only on holiday once! Just buy it! Don’t worry about money on holiday!’ For this reason, I’m reluctant to let myself too near large shopping malls or markets on a day out. I passed through the main square and headed for the Royal Opera House at the opposite end. Here, my (untrustworthy) app told me, was an exhibition called The Olympic Journey, about the history of the Olympics.

I was ushered up a ramp and told by a young woman in a white cardy and a strange white-to-green faded skirt (I tried, and failed, to work out how it fitted with the Olympics) that her name was Laura (snap!) and she was going to take us on an Olympic Journey.

‘Great!’ I thought. ‘There’ll be so much cool Olympic stuff in here that I can take pics of, to show everyone on the blog, they’ll love a bit of that.’ You see? I’m always thinking about you, about how to keep you entertained. Just call me Selfless Laura.

Anyway, up the ramp I go, camera at the ready. Before the curtain is swept back to let everyone in, Laura Of The Strange Skirt says, ‘Just to remind everyone, there’s no photography allowed inside and no touching of the artefacts.’ FAIL! Big fat Olympic exhibition fail. Never mind.

I got a little booklet about afterwards with the stuff in, but it’s not the same, so I’ll just tell you the best bits. When we first entered, they had made a Greece room, in essence. There were olive trees and loads of info about how and when the games started. The most interesting fact I discovered in this bit was that the Greek word for naked is ‘gymnos,’ which is where the words ‘gymnastics’ and ‘gymnasium’ come from. This is because the competitors used to all be naked when the Olympics first started! Something about showing the unity between the body and the surrounding environment, or something.

Immediately my mind got to work. Imagine! Just imagine you’re there, on your chariot, ready to compete in the pentathlon or whatever, and your chariot falls apart or you get dragged off and hit the ground, naked. You’d be torn to pieces! After I imagined gruesome naked deaths and embarrassing naked wrestling, we were ushered into the next room, about how it came back to life in the late 1800s.

Pierre Coubotin started them up again because loads of countries had already been captivated by this idea of a sports competition like the Greeks had. He mobilised them all to have a worldwide one and it’s been going ever since.

There was a room which had one of all the torches that had been used. The Sydney one was quite cool, all new-agey. I liked the Rome one too and the Beijing one was pretty. Interesting fact from this room was that the idea to have a flame on the torch was first used in the Berlin games. Hitler came up with it! Presumably before then, the torch was just being carried along, as a symbolic thing. I also didn’t realise that when they held the games in Sydney, they used some amazing new technology flare thing, to swim the flame underwater to Australia!

In the last room there was a copy of a gold, silver and bronze medal from each of the games. The London 2012 ones look massive in comparison and, to be honest, like they’re made of plastic! Of course they’re the colours of gold etc, but because they’re quite big, they almost look like children’s toys.

In the same room were stories of 16 Olympians. I loved the story about the Ethiopian marathon runner, Abebe Bikila. Adidas were sponsoring the event and provided shoes for all the runners, but Abebe couldn’t find a pair to fit, so he ran barefoot, and won! They had a video of him running barefoot, way ahead of all the other runners. Amazing.

After this onslaught of amazingness, it was time to head back to the site of my earlier disappointment to find the book maze. As I entered the Royal Festival Hall, it was in a room to my right, which is completely open, down a few stairs. I feel like it suffered a bit due to this, because I entered from above it and could easily see the way to get to the middle and that it wasn’t as massive as I had initially thought it would be.

Because the first layer of books was a waist height, it wasn’t really a maze, because I just looked where the path went. As I got further back, though, the walls got higher.

Once I had gone around this one bend, though, it took another ten seconds or so to get to the middle. While it was fun to be surrounded by so many books, the ‘maze’ part took me all of one minute to work out. I revelled in being around so many books and hung around for a bit longer, looking at them. There was a section of the low part, where a load of Braille books had been left open and there was someone reading them, which was quite a lovely thing to watch.

I headed to the Festival of the World exhibition next, just down some stairs from the book maze. The exhibition was all about educational innovations that have spread around the world and the result of some were on display. There was artwork from an amazing South American woman who lived on a rubbish heap in a slum but had used the plastic bottles to make artwork.

There was music from a Cuban orchestra, which I sat and listened to for a while. Then I came to a room which just had a photo booth in. It asked me to put 20p in and get my passport photos done, to become a citizen of the world! Yes, please! This sounded fun. I got my photos done, cut out the best one and walked into the next room, where someone handed me a blue Antarctica passport, someone else glued my photo in and I filled in my details and got a country stamp for Antarctica.

This is because they have open borders, so anyone can choose to become a citizen of Antarctica, if they choose! So I did. Quite exciting.

After this I headed back to Waterloo station and got the tube to Kensington, to the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. On the way to the park, I happened upon this fantastic free exhibition for the Travel Photograph of the Year, located in the main hall and gardens of the Royal Geographic Society.

When I got to the underground pavilion outside the Serpentine Gallery, it wasn’t what I was expecting. In fact, I’m not sure I knew what to expect. On the top was a large round plate thing, which had water in it, and underneath was a series of steps and stools and blocks, all made out of cork, where people were sitting and relaxing, chatting with friends. It seemed like a nice chill-out place but I didn’t stop because I had seen something near the gallery itself.

There is an exhibition by Yoko Ono and one of the things she had outside was a wish tree. I love reading these! Here are a few of my favourites from this one:

I wish I had more than one cat.

I wish someone else’s wish comes true (I don’t really need anything) x

I wish for a nice job, a nice place to live and a nice boyfriend.

I wish I was a superhero like Spiderman so I could shoot webs.

I wish you were on me.

I wish for no distance between us. I wish to be the girl of your dreams.

I wish life was not that hard.

I wish that I could have chocolate every day. Joe, 5 years.

I wish that Lego keep making good sets 🙂

07912413886. Call me and make me wish come true. Jordan x

I wish I had a pigg.

So after looking at the wish tree for ages, I remembered seeing something when I came in the gates of Hyde Park, so I went back that way and found the Africa Village. Exciting! I headed in, ready for an onslaught of Africa-ness and nostalgia. There were stands with each country’s name on. I set about finding the Namibia stand, to go and pretend I’m fluent in Afrikaans and see if they had any Namibia stuff I could take away with me. Some stands had food or little souvenirs. I looked… And I looked… And I looked. There was no Namibia stand! I searched around but it wasn’t that big so after a few minutes I realised there mustn’t be one, and left the village a bit disappointed.

At this point I thought about setting off on my historic walk around Kensington and was wondering whether my legs were maybe too tired for that. I’d been on my feet for a long time by this point. And that’s when I saw it….. The sign for Whole Foods…

Holiday head kicked in and I abandoned my proposed walk around the area, for a walk around Whole Foods. I grabbed a trolley (I should have known better!) and started putting one of everything in. Do I really need Malaysian chicken skewers?! Of course! And a swordfish steak? Seriously now! A swordfish steak? Don’t be ridiculous. O, but it’s holiday, just get it! Live a little. In went the swordfish steak. And the raw chocolate and goji berry bar. And the handcrafted smoked haddock fish cake. And the sundried tomatoes from the mountains of Italy. And the gently steamed spinach with shallots and garlic. Ridiculous.

After this, I slumped to the tube station in shame, stuffing my face with a chicken samosa and a roasted vegetable wrap, washed down with a swig of pure Fijian rainwater, gathered at dusk by dragonflies or something just as ridiculous, and felt equal measures of shame and smugness.

And in this way, my epic day of embracing London was ended.

 

P.S. The app and I are now friends again.